In response to the closure of the Port of Churchill a movement has arisen demanding that the port be nationalized to save the jobs in this strategic industry. Manitoba NDP MP Niki Ashton has come out in support of this demand for nationalization against the latest symptom of the crisis of capitalism. We support the call by Ashton and the community. In part one of this two-part article we detail the struggle in Churchill.

People around the world are questioning and challenging capitalism and the set-up of our society, and nobody is more critical of the status quo than the youth. Does this come as a surprise to anybody given the world we live in today?

Few economic opportunities, constant economic instability and declining living standards affect more and more of the population, with young workers and university graduates at the bottom of the pile. A tiny handful in each society live lavishly with such obscene wealth that the kings and pharaohs of past are put to shame.

Constable James Forcillo, the police officer who shot and killed Sammy Yatim on a TTC streetcar on July 27th, 2013 is now asking that his sentence be served under house-arrest instead of facing jail time. Constable Forcillo was convicted of attempted murder on January 25th, 2016. The fact that Forcillo was actually convicted, even of the lesser offence of attempted murder instead of second-degree murder, has surprised many. In the 23 year old history of the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), Forcillo is only the second cop in Toronto to be charged for murder. He is the first to ever be found guilty of even so much as a related charge.

The high-profile trial of former CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi has made it glaringly clear that the capitalist criminal justice system fails survivors of sexual violence. In March, Ghomeshi was found “not guilty” for one charge of choking to overcome resistance and four charges of sexual assault related to three women. Throughout the trial the three women complainants were aggressively cross-examined and scrutinized as if they themselves had committed a crime, instead of their celebrity abuser.

On Feb 5, 1981, Toronto police staged the largest mass arrest in Canada since the October Crisis, raiding four bathhouses in Toronto’s gay village. n the aftermath, the Ontario Federation of Labour, the Labour Council of Metropolitan Toronto, and the Ontario Association of Professional Social Workers passed resolutions condemning the raids, taking a firm and progressive stand against all forms of oppression.

Attawapiskat, a First Nations community in northern Ontario, has declared a state of emergency after 11 suicide attempts in one night. This is just one month after a state of emergency was declared by Cross Lake First Nation in Manitoba, where the community suffered six deaths by suicide in two months and 140 attempts in two weeks. The truth is that the horrendous living conditions which many of our Aboriginal communities are forced to endure entail a constant “state of emergency”.

The hypocrisy of the rich has never been more glaring since the release of the Panama Papers. While the rest of the world is reeling about the scandal, we cannot forget Canada's own tax haven. Canada is not immune to the scandalous use of tax havens among the rich and famous. At least 350 wealthy Canadians listed in the documents have been implicated in the shadowy practices of tax dodging. This has proven what many Canadians already knew: that there is one set of rules for the rich, and another more punishing set of rules for everyone else.

On Sunday March 19th, Black Lives Matter (BLM) Toronto initiated a protest outside Toronto police headquarters. The protest subsequently turned into an occupation which lasted two weeks. The instigating event was the failure of the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) to prosecute the officers involved in the fatal shooting of 45-year old Andrew Loku, who is of South Sudanese origin. After eight months of deliberation, the SIU ruled that the officer in question did not exceed the range of “justifiable force”.

In the current campaign to receive the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, Hillary Clinton has tried to portray herself as a defender of women’s rights, appealing to “sisterhood” and the possibility of becoming the first female president in order to galvanize support. While there is certainly a layer who views her as the most progressive candidate because of her gender, many young women and men in the U.S. can see right through the smoke and mirrors, and recognize Clinton as a member of the increasingly hated establishment.

Global markets gave fallen 7.1% since January 1st, their worst start since 1970. George Soros, the renowned business magnate, says the situation developing in China reminds him of the period prior to the banking crisis of 2008. Former US treasury secretary Larry Summers has said, "The global risk to domestic performance in the US, Europe and many emerging markets is as great as any time I can remember."